The answer appears to be “yes”.

I am often asked about the role of fish oil supplements and whether we should be all taking them on a regular basis.
Some challenge my suggestion that we should all be eating fish several times a week for our cognitive health. “But where is the proof that eating fish or taking fish oil capsules can protect your brain” they ask.

A large number of studies from around the world have now supported the positive findings indicating the benefit to memory and cognition we gain from eating fish.
Fish provides us with an excellent source of Omega 3, an essential fatty acid that we can only derive from our diet. The brain uses Omega 3 in forming part of the cell membrane that surrounds every neuron or brain cell. In other words it is a vital component contributing to the structural integrity of all our neurons.

But many people struggle for a number of reasons to eat enough fresh fish. Taking fish oil as capsules or in liquid form appears to be a suitable alternative. Some fish oil manufacturers claim taking fish oil is good for cognitive health.

But is there proof?
Findings from a new study reported at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Paris recently, suggest that taking fish oil does indeed confer protection to the brain against cognitive decline.

This was demonstrated in two ways. Firstly those taking fish oil regularly were found to maintain a higher brain volume, especially in the area of the cortex and hippocampus: two areas concerned with memory and thinking.

The other finding was that those taking fish oil supplements, tested higher on baseline cognitive functioning tests throughout and after the study.

The study included 819 individuals who had normal cognition, mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease. Of this group, 117 subjects reported taking fish oil supplements regularly.

It was noted, that the benefits were only a positive association for those without cognitive impairment. This confirms previous findings, that fish oil supplementation is of no clinical benefit once cognitive impairment is present.
It was also only a positive association in those individuals who were APOE4 negative. So there is a genetic influence on the outcome.

In the general population, testing for APOE4 is not routine, one reason being that testing positive for the gene has no bearing on whether the gene will or will not be expressed and 60% of those with Alzheimer’s disease do not carry this gene.

So should we be taking fish oil supplements?
Regardless of whether we know our APOE4 status or not, it appears that that are substantial potential benefits to do so. I have been using fish oil supplements now for a number of years and intend to continue.

What about you? Do you take supplements and if not, does this research persuade you to consider using them?

Ref:
Lifespan (2011, August 17). Fish oil’s impact on cognition and brain structure identified in new study. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 28, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2011/08/110817120220.htm

If I’m listening to a song with my husband and can’t remember the name of the singer, I’ll usually ask him if he knows.

In trivia quizzes I am usually useful for the medical questions but useless for the sports ones, that’s where a particular friend comes in handy.
This sharing of information we need and obtain from others is called “transactive memory”.

This was first described 30 years ago as meaning the division of the work or remembering shared information which is great as it frees us up from having to have duplicate sets of memory.

Today we now have so much more access to other information beyond our family members, books and encyclopaedias.
So where do we go to now when we have a question we want answered?

Well it’s quite likely to be Google.

The way we use the Internet today has drastically changed our ability to obtain information. But is it changing how our brain uses that information for future use as well?

That was a question that a researcher Betsy Sparrow recently set out to answer and her findings are really interesting.

And probably as you would expect, she found that people would often anticipate using the Internet to look up the answers to questions they weren’t sure of.

What was also interesting was that people were better able to remember the information, if they were told they would not be able to save it for future reference. Plus those who were asked to remember the information and where it was saved on their computer actually had better recall for where to find it than the actual information itself.

What does this mean?

Well perhaps using the Internet allows our brain to not have to do so much work, especially if we are confident the information will always be there.
We just need to know where to look for it. As another psychologist Roddy Roediger from Washington University said “why remember something if I know I can look it up again?”.

He also suggests that because we now have access to an ever-increasing information rich environment, this could be contributing to the so-called “Flynn effect”. This is the gradual increase in IQ score that has been observed over the last century.

What have you noticed for yourself or for your family in terms of their studying habits?

Do you think the Internet is useful in this way, or do you worry that we are outsourcing our brains too much to modern technology?
Let me know, I’d love to hear what you think.

Ref:
Sparrow,S., Liu,J., Wegner, D.M. Google effects on memory: Cognitive consequences of having information at our fingertips. Science. 14 July 2011 DOI 10.1126/science.1207745

Bohannon, J. Searching for the Google effect on memory. Science. Vol 333 15 July 2011 pg 277

Have you noticed how with age and UV exposure some plastics change, becoming more brittle? Well, it seems that as we get older, our plastic brain loses some of its plasticity too.

Our middle aged brains start to notice that it gets harder to learn stuff and keep it in our heads. It takes more effort to pay attention to what we are doing and more practice to embed new memories. We’ve found out that part of this is due to a slowing down of the brains’ processing speed and our increasing levels of distractibility. But new research now indicates that there is another reason for this; our lovely plastic brain becomes less plastic.

What does this mean?

When we talk about our brain being plastic, we are referring to the ability of neurons to form new connections (synapses) with other neurons. This occurs at the level of the dendrites, fine branches that sprout out from the neurons. These dendrites have “spines” which can develop into the new synapses, These synapses are formed and lost, as part of normal rewiring of the brain.

When we are learning new information, the neurons are actively forming new synapses. However some neural pathways or connections become redundant and without use or stimulation, these synapses simply get resorbed. This then frees up more space for yet more new connections to form, so it’s a great system.

The part of the brain we use for our higher level of thinking such as planning, organising, decision-making and our working memory is the prefrontal cortex. This is the part of the brain that is the last to fully mature in humans and is the area most likely to be affected by the effects of ageing.

High levels of stress and cortisol are known to cause neurons to shrink and for synaptic connections to be lost. Fortunately, once the stress is removed, our plastic brain allows new synapses to reform.

The effect of ageing on our brains plasticity.

New research from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine has shown that the brains of middle aged and elderly rats were less able to adapt to a behavioural stress response. In other words they were less able to learn from the experience. The neurons of the younger rats did change, showing normal plasticity and rewiring. Previous studies in 2010 examining the effect of the stress response in older rat brains had found a lack of a plastic response here as well.
Does this mean that stress doesn’t affect us as much as we get older? No, it means that with age, we lose some of our resiliency to stress; our brain is less able to respond, or to produce new synapses after the stress has been removed.

Our somewhat fragile and demanding prefrontal cortex is continually rewiring itself in response to all the stimulation and experience it encounters every day. Like plastic bottles however, our level of plasticity appears to diminish with age, we become less able to respond to either learning or stress.

With brain fitness training we are encouraged to “use it or lose it.”
To keep our mental sharpness and brain plasticity, it appears essential we continue to provide our brain with a variety of new and challenging activities.

Ref:
E. B. Bloss, W. G. Janssen, D. T. Ohm, F. J. Yuk, S. Wadsworth, K. M. Saardi, B. S. McEwen, J. H. Morrison. Evidence for Reduced Experience-Dependent Dendritic Spine Plasticity in the Aging Prefrontal Cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 2011; 31 (21): 7831 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0839-11.2011

Have you ever had a late night or had to stay up late to finish some work and found that the next day you are not quite at your usual perky self? After getting less sleep than normal you may notice that you are less focused, a bit fuzzy in your thinking and less able to recall things as easily as normal.

Some people (including myself!) know that drinking coffee late at night is a no-no because of its insomniac effect. What happens with coffee is that the caffeine competes with a naturally occurring brain chemical called adenosine. Our brain produces adenosine, which is taken up by specialized receptors to quieten down our brain in preparation for sleep. Drinking that cup of coffee at night allows the caffeine to compete for those same receptors as adenosine, allowing excess adenosine to remain circulating and we end up tossing and turning in bed, wishing we had had a cup of hot milk instead.

OK, so caffeine stops us from going to sleep, but why does lack of sleep affect our memory so much?

Researchers using mice studies seem to have found a biological explanation.
In a study published in the Journal Of Neuroscience, researchers looked at the role of adenosine and memory in sleep deprivation. It turns out the effect is the same whether you are a fruit fly, a mouse or a human being. In sleep deprivation you end up with more adenosine floating around than normal, just in the same way as when caffeine blocks of adenosine uptake.

Glial cells, the brain cells that support neurons, produce adenosine. The receptors for the adenosine are located in the hippocampus the specialized area associate with memory and learning.

Losing the equivalent of half a night’s sleep for just for one night was shown to produce a significant impact on a mouse’s ability to form memory, and the neurons involved were less plastic than normal, meaning normal neuronal transmission was compromised.

Getting enough sleep is essential for us to think clearly and have normal memory function. This is true for both children at school and for adults in the workplace. We need enough shuteye to help our brain work at its best.

This was also discussed in relation to our children in a recent article in the New York Times. The author asked the question about how much do our children sleep and are they getting enough sleep.

This is especially pertinent for adolescents whose brains undergo some radical changes during their teens right up to the time when brain development is complete in their early twenties.

Sleep researchers report that this age group requires between 8 to 9+ hours sleep per night, yet many get far less than this, and trying to catch up on weekends doesn’t work.
The result? Many high school students are in class already sleep deprived and in a less than perfect state in order to learn. Not only are they less efficient in taking in new information, they also need sleep to consolidate their learning and form memories. All of which adds up to a negative effect on those all important school grades.

When it comes to learning and memory, it boils down to the fact we really do need to get enough sleep.

Refs:
C. Florian, C. G. Vecsey, M. M. Halassa, P. G. Haydon, T. Abel. Astrocyte-Derived Adenosine and A1 Receptor Activity Contribute to Sleep Loss-Induced Deficits in Hippocampal Synaptic Plasticity and Memory in Mice. Journal of Neuroscience, 2011; 31 (19): 6956 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5761-10.2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/health/24brody.html

Have you ever wondered why it is that as people get older they tend to reminisce more?
Have you also noticed that older people tend to complain more about how hard it is for them to learn new things?

It’s not just the fact that older people have more to remember and reminisce about, it may be that it is easier for them to recall an older memory than it is to create a new one.

When we form a new memory the information has to be received and then processed by the area of out brain called the hippocampus.
As we get older, those neural pathways bringing the information to the hippocampus start to get degraded. So if there are more potholes in the road, it is harder for the brain to get the information to the processing plant to lay down a new memory.

Professor Yassa at John Hopkins University has been using 3 different forms of MRI scans (structural, functional and diffusional) to study how well different areas of the brain communicate and distinguish between old, new and similar information and the differences between the brains of younger College students and a group of 60 to 80 year olds.

What he found was that the older subjects were less able to recognise something that was similar to something they had recently seen. Images had also to be very different, to be picked up as being new. This was attributed to the older group having a more degraded pathway of the information getting to the hippocampus.

So next time you forget where you parked the car. It may not just be because you didn’t pay attention at the time, but also that your brain is relying more on previous memories of where you parked previously, which may not be of much help to you this time round!

Ref:

M.A. Yassa, A. T. M., S.M. Stark, C.E.L.Stark (2011). “Age-related memory deficits linked to circuit-specific disruptions in the hippocampus.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,.